Since the Covid-19 pandemic, customer expectations about their experiences with brands have changed dramatically. Particularly, the modern consumer is more concerned about sustainability and social issues than ever. While this presents significant challenges to businesses, it also opens up opportunities for businesses to improve their marketing strategies.
Content curation is crucial in the new normal of content curation.
Different brands saw the pandemic as an opportunity for cultural change. We’ve seen businesses actively engage with new digital consumers while also looking for casual online engagement. Brands have also sought to be more vocal about the virtues most relevant to their target audience and encouraged the use of social proofs in order to build trust.
To make content curation more appealing to customers in this age of the new normal, there have been many other changes.
Accessing a Predominantly digital Audience
The pandemic has intensified a trend that existed before. Online consumers have grown in number and become significantly more active, which presents far greater opportunities to audiences.
(Image: WARC)
The data shows that eCommerce, social media and online video activity increased significantly in 2020, as global lockdowns caused widespread disruption across almost all industries.
Kantar research found that web browsing increased 70% in the latter stages of the pandemic. TV viewing numbers rose by 63% while social media engagement rose by about 61%.
As people sought to connect remotely during the pandemics, WhatsApp saw the most growth. The messaging platform saw a significant increase of usage with over 40%. This was a remarkable feat that has remained unparallelled.
Spain was the hardest hit by these increases in social media usage. There was a 76% increase on WhatsApp and 37% on Facebook. China saw a 58% rise in social media usage, with platforms such as Wechat and Weibo gaining from this trend.
These usage increases were most noticeable in the 18-34 age bracket, while WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram saw an increase of more than 40% compared to those under 35.
Kantar’s study showed that the pandemic caused a crisis in trust. Around 52% of those surveyed deemed national news channels trustworthy, including newspapers and broadcast. It was also found that only 48% of respondents trusted websites from government agencies. Surprisingly, 11% of respondents said that social media platforms were trustworthy sources of information.
This data shows that people are more online after the pandemic but they are also very wary of sharing information on social media.
This is a dilemma for brands trying to reach more people online. Content curation is a great way to display social proofs for your business by gathering unbiased reviews and interactions.
Appealing to a fickle audience
Many people around the globe experienced a major change due to the pandemic. Within weeks lockdown measures forced consumers into making life-changing changes, and basically resetting their views on brands they had previously bought.
Covid-19 also increased the number of digital interactions consumers had to companies. Salesforce Commerce Cloud reports that over three million transactions were conducted daily in 2020, which is more than 100% higher than the previous year.
(Image: Salesforce)
The table shows that younger Americans are most distrustful of brands. 70% of Gen Zers claimed that the misuse of their personal data caused them to lose faith in a brand during the pandemic.
Brands have many new opportunities to connect with new customers online. However, there are also new challenges.
Failure to fully embrace digital transformation can result in poor customer service and misuse of personal data through data breaches or hyper-targeted marketing campaigns.
Social Proofs via Content Curation
Businesses can use content curation to communicate with a wider audience. Instead of speaking to a skeptical audience, they can instead use the opinions of satisfied customers to share their good service on social media.
Businesses can use this opportunity to show value, even if they don’t have to prove their products’ quality.
A mother who had an active Instagram account shared her Starbuck experience and Starbuck baristas offered support. Starbucks posted the story to its own account, attracting over 180,000 likes.
The story placed Starbucks in a sympathetic light and the online responses – especially from mothers who shared the same difficulties – were overwhelming positive, despite not being covered about any Starbucks products.
This shows that even simple moments of heartfelt service can be reflected in a prominent online presence.
This curated content looks great and is easy to share. It also shows that trusting customers is possible with this marketing approach.
Brands looking to integrate social proofs beyond social media can use python technology solutions to include multimedia content from customers on company landing pages.
Setting up trust can involve self-depreciation
It may seem counterintuitive but brands, especially those offering low-cost products or services to customers, can create positive online sentiment by acknowledging their business model doesn’t have prestige-level quality.
Ryanair’s budget airline is active on Twitter, engaging in self-deprecating curated material. Ryanair’s brand reputation as a low cost, no frills airline has been a badge for honor. This allows the company to find humor in social media posts that poke fun about the airline’s strict baggage allowances, such as the one above.
We are seeing more innovative content curation strategies as consumers struggle to find trust in brands after the Covid-19 pandemic. This aspect of marketing used to be a time-saving way to connect with audiences. It’s now a powerful way to earn trust among wary audiences.
This is why it’s possible that companies with the most innovative approaches to content curation will be the stars of marketing in this new age.
Scoop.it Blog’s Content Curation in New Normal: How Brands Need to Adapt to a Post-Pandemic Landscape originally appeared on Scoop.it Blog.
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